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THE  OLD  *MB  NEW 
IDEAL  ""SCHOLARS 


A  BACCALAUREATE  ADDRESS  DELIVERED 

JUNE    18,    1905, 

BY  JAMES  BURRILL  ANGELL,  LL.D., 
PRESIDENT  OF  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  MICHIGAN 


/INN    ARBOR,     MICHIGAN 

PUBLISHED    BY    THE    UNIVERSITY 

1905 


THE  OLD  AND   THE   NEW 
IDEAL    OF    SCHOLARS 


A  BACCALAUREATE  ADDRESS  DELIVERED 

JUNE    18,    1905, 

BY  JAMES  BURRILL  ANGELL,  LL.D., 
PRESIDENT  OF  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  MICHIGAN 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 


ANN    ARBOR,    MICHIGAN 

PUBLISHED    BY    THE    UNIVERSITY 

1905 


THE    OLD   AND   THE   NEW 
IDEAL     OF     SCHOLARS 

BACCALAUREATE  DISCOURSE 

DELIVERED  JUNE  18  BY  PRESIDENT    ANGELL 

During  the  last  half  century  an  important  change 
has  taken  place  in  the  intellectual  ideals  which  students 
in  American  colleges  and  universities  are  taught  to  cher- 
ish. In  my  college  days  we  were  incited  to  make  the 
largest  possible  acquisitions  of  what  had  been  learned 
and  thought  by  great  scholars  and  to  attain  the  culture 
which  such  achievement  brought  us.  In  these  days  the 
ultimate  end  which  the  student  is  exhorted  to  seek  over 
and  above  and  beyond  those  acquisitions  is  the  power 
and  the  passion  for  discovering  new  truth.  Learning  and 
culture  were  the  rewards  for  which  we  then  strove.  In 
addition  to  them  the  scholar  is  now  exhorted  and  stimu- 
lated to  test  his  gifts  for  investigation  and  research  in 
some  department  of  thought.  No  ambitious  young 
teacher  in  our  colleges  now  fails  to  make  a  strenuous 
effort  to  enlarge,  if  possible,  the  boundaries  of  knowledge 
in  the  domain  of  learning  which  he  is  called  to  cultivate. 
The  enthusiasm  of  the  teachers  is  easily  communicated 
to  their  aspiring  pupils.  Therefore  many  of  the  most 
brilliant  and  promising  students  who  have  reached  the 
stage  to  which  you  have  come  are  fired  with  the  purpose 
and  familiar  to  some  degree  with  the  methods  of  seizing 
any  opportunity  for  intelligent  and  fruitful  research. 
One  of  the  obvious  consequences  of  this  difference  be- 

-3- 


tween  the  graduate  of  former  days  and  the  graduate  of 
to-day  is  that  the  former  was  inclined  to  accept  with 
more  docility  the  opinions  which  had  been  taught  to  him, 
while  the  latter  is  apt  to  have  more  independence  of 
view  and  often  more  originality.  The  former  is  more 
disposed  to  accept  the  authority  of  tradition,  the  latter  to 
question  every  belief  which  asks  for  his  assent  until  it  is 
proved  to  be  sound. 

Each  type  of  scholarship,  the  old  and  the  new,  has 
some  advantages  and  some  dangers. 

The  advantages  gained  by  each  of  the  methods  of 
study  described  are  obvious  enough.  He  who  has  gained 
possession  of  the  great  thoughts,  the  polished  languages, 
the  rich  literatures,  the  fruitful  history  of  the  past,  has  a 
store  of  intellectual  wealth  on  which  he  can  draw  to  aid 
him  in  every  exigency  of  life.  Lofty  and  elevating  ideals 
of  literary  form,  of  scientific  exposition,  of  human  achiev- 
rnent,  of  manly  and  womanly  character  are  ever  before 
his  mind.  They  stimulate  him  to  imitation,  to  intellec- 
tual activity,  to  heroic  living.  The  roll  of  great  men  who 
have  been  nurtured  and  inspired  by  the  mastery  of  learn- 
ing is  long  and  distinguished.  We  cannot  honor  them 
too  highly. 

On  the  other  hand  the  men  who  have  made  their 
aim  not  only  to  aquire  a  knowledge  of  the  truth  handed 
down  to  them,  but  have  sought  to  learn  how  to  discover 
new  truth, have  peculiarly  developed  their  perceptive  and 
reasoning  faculties  and  have  often  enlarged  the  domain 
of  our  knowledge  by  pains -taking  research.  They  are 
classed  with  the  great  discoverers.  They  have  made 
known  to  us  the  mysteries  of  the  divine  handiwork,  and 
have  wrung  from  nature  the  answers  to  our  eager  and 
irrepressible  questionings  about  the  origin  and  develop- 
ment of  man  and  of  the  world  in  which  he  finds  himself. 

Among  the  perils  of  the  old  type  are  the  following: 

1.  By  the  too  docile  acceptance  of  the  traditions, 
tastes  and  doctrines  of  the  past  there  is  danger  of  the 
perpetuation  of  error,  of  acquiescence  in  false  views  of 


history,  character  and  life.  Immeasurable  indeed  is  the 
debt  we  owe  to  the  past  for  the  truth  it  has  handed  down 
to  us.  But  mingled  with  the  precious  freightage  of  truth 
which  it  has  brought,  is  no  small  quantity  of  misrepre- 
sentations, delusions,  and  falsehoods,  which  it  behooves 
us  to  beware  of.  We  cannot  afford  to  take  blindly  all 
that  it  offers  us. 

2.  The  scholar  who  contents  himself  with  absorb- 
ing, with  voracious  appetite  and  unquestioning  readiness, 
all  the  learning  that  his  predecessors  have  passed  on  to 
him  may  have  an  intellectual  plethora  that  will  cripple 
him  with  the  feebleness  and  sourness  of   mental    dys- 
pepsia   rather    than    furnish    him   with   mental    vigor. 
Some  men  are  weighed  down  with   such  a  superfluity  of 
learning  that  it  is  not  only  useless  to  them,  but  positively 
cumbersome.      There  are  juvenile  phenomena  crammed 
and  stuffed  with  text-book  knowledge  as  geese  are  fat- 
tened for  the  market  by  over -feeding,  and   neither  the 
children  nor  the  geese  have  the  power  of  useful  activity. 

3.  There  are  men  who  by  temperament  are  in- 
clined to  worship  the  old,  merely  because  it  is  old.    What- 
ever the  fathers  have  said  is  admired  by  them,  because 
the   fathers   have   said  it.     Whatever  the  fathers  have 
held,  is  accepted  by  them,  because  the  fathers  have  held 
it.     Imitation  of  the  fathers  is  to  them  the  truest  wisdom. 
Like  the  Chinese,  they  see  their  golden  age  behind  them, 
not  before  them.     So  far  as  they  can,  they  anchor  the 
human  race  to  the  past,  and  make  progress  impossible. 

These  three  perils  impend  over  the  scholar  whose 
ideal  is  merely  to  master  the  learning  of  the  past. 

On  the  other  hand  the  student  who  undervalues  the 
intellectual  contributions  of  the  past  and  who  trusts  un- 
duly to  his  own  power  of  investigation  often  loses  the 
valuable  fruits  of  the  toil  of  his  predecessors  by  his  igno- 
rance of  their  discoveries  or  by  his  lack  of  appreciation 
of  them.  How  many  men  have  there  been  of  great  tal- 
ent, but  of  limited  scholarship,  who  have  worked  for 
years  to  reach  a  result  which  had  been  attained  long 

—5— 


before  by  some  one  as  gifted  as  they.  But  for  their  igno- 
rance they  might  have  started  their  search  where  they 
left  off,  and  pushed  on  their  search  beyond  the  frontiers 
of  the  known.  The  first  quest  of  the  successful  investi- 
gator should  be  to  learn  all  that  others  in  any  land  or  in 
any  century  have  ascertained  concerning  the  subject  in 
hand.  With  that  at  his  command  he  can  then  press  for- 
ward into  the  domain  of  the  unknown,  and  recognize  as 
genuine  any  real  treasures  which  he  may  find. 

2.  Another  danger  to  which  a   seeker  after  truth 
is  exposed,  if  he  is  not  well  read  in  the  literature  of  his 
subject,  is  vanity  over  his  supposed  discoveries,  when  they 
may  prove  not  to  be  new  discoveries  at  all.      It  is  not  rare 
to  meet  men  of  this  stamp,  possessed  it  may  be  of  vigor- 
ous minds,  but  absurdly  over-confident  in  the  value   of 
their  work,  and  disposed  to  discourse  with  flippancy  and 
conceit  of  it,   and  to  be  quite  impatient  and  incensed  at 
hearing  it  estimated  at  its  real  worth  by  one  whose  learn- 
ing qualifies  him  to  make  a  just  appraisal  of  it.     They 
are  apt  to  be  among  the  most  dogmatic  and  bigoted  of 
men. 

3.  Again  as  we  found   men  worshipping  the  old 
merely  because  it  was  old,  so  we  find  the  men  of  whom 
we  are  speaking  disposed  to  worship  the  new  merely  be- 
cause it  is  new.     They  spurn  the  conservatism,  limita- 
tions and  ignorance  of  the  elder  generations.     They  do 
not  imagine  that  in  their  enlightened  age  they  can  learn 
from  their  ancestors.     Their  own  witty  inventions  must 
needs  be  better  than  any  superannuated  contrivances  of 
the  past.     They  may  magnanimously  admit  that  their 
elders  did  fairly  well  for  their  times,  but  the  brighter 
light  of  our  day  makes  their  work  superfluous.     So  these 
fail  to  learn  much  that  can  often  be  learned  by  patiently 
tracing  the  steps  through  which  the  fathers  brought  us 
along  to  the  high  vantage  ground  on  which  we  now  stand. 
They  are  liable  to  be  at  once  enamored  of  any  novelty 
that  a  plausible  charlatan  may  display. 

To  these  perils  thus  briefly  set  forth  the  votaries  of 
—6— 


literature  and  of  science  are  alike  exposed. 

In  comparing  the  method  of  the  present  and  that  of 
the  past  generation  in  determining  their  attitude  towards 
the  Christian  faith,  we  find  a  change  analogous  to  that 
which  we  have  recognized  in  their  intellectual  activity. 
And  this  was  to  be  expected.  It  is  impossible  that  their 
mental  processes  in  respect  to  all  the  other  subjects  of 
thought  should  be  modified  without  affecting  their  thought 
and  reasoning  concerning  religion.  Formerly  they  accept- 
ed for  the  most  part  without  questioning  the  views  which 
had  been  held  concerning  the  Bible,  concerning  inspira- 
tion, and  with  some  differences  in  different  groups  con- 
cerning theological  doctrines.  They  raised  no  question 
about  the  canonicity  or  authority  of  the  various  books  of 
the  Scripture.  They  generally  received  their  beliefs  as 
they  did  their  names,  as  a  family  inheritance.  The  only 
question  was,  whether  they  would  or  would  not  comply 
with  what  they  conceded,  if  pressed  for  a  statement,  was 
the  demand  which  was  made  upon  them  by  the  Scripture 
as  their  rule  of  life,  and  the  Scripture  as  generally  inter- 
preted in  their  circle  of  associates. 

But  those  who  were  of  scholarly  temperament 
feasted  their  souls  and  their  minds  on  the  meditations, 
the  experiences,  the  reasonings  of  the  great  men  in  the 
church  through  all  the  centuries  of  the  Christian  era. 
The  leaders  in  theological  exposition  from  St.  Paul  to 
Luther  and  Calvin  and  Jonathan  Edwards,  the  revealers 
of  deep  spiritual  experience  from  St.  John  to  St.  Francis 
and  Thomas  a  Kempis,  the  decisions  and  creeds  of  coun- 
cils from  Nicaea  to  Westminster,  the  suffering  of  mar- 
tyrs from  St.  Stephen  to  modern  missionaries,  that  most 
remarkable  of  all  historic  growths,  the  growth  of  the 
Christian  church,  these  all  have  been  devoutly  studied 
by  them  until  the  life  of  that  church  has  become  incor- 
porated into  their  lives,  and  they  are  an  integral  part 
of  it.  They  are  linked  to  the  past  by  the  strong  and 
holy  ties  of  an  invincible  faith,  which  is  an  anchor  to  the 
soul,  sure  and  steadfast.  But  it  may  be  and  often  is  so 

n 


bound  to  the  traditions  of  the  past  that  it  admits  of  little 
or  no  modification  by  virtue  of  any  new  light  from  mod- 
ern discovery  in  any  department  of  scholarship. 

And  in  the  last  generation  in  no  department  of  human 
thought  has  there  been  greater  or  more  important  activ- 
ity than  in  religious  thought,  and  in  none  have  the  con- 
sequences been  more  marked.  Of  course  there  are  some 
men  who  have  not  quitted  the  ground  occupied  by  the 
fathers  in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries. 
But  the  great  body  of  scholars  have  now  accepted  the 
doctrine  of  evolution  with  all  that  it  implies  concerning 
the  origin  and  development  of  the  physical  world  and  of 
man.  Exactly  what  it  does  imply  in  some  particulars,  is 
indeed  still  a  matter  of  discussion.  But  that  its  implica- 
tions greatly  modify  some  of  our  old  beliefs,  founded  on 
traditional  interpretations  of  the  Bible,  is  certain.  Fur- 
thermore, careful  and  critical  study  of  the  history,  the 
texts,  and  the  interpretation  of  the  books  of  the  Scrip- 
ture and  also  of  comparative  religions  has  thrown  a 
flood  of  light  on  the  meaning  of  the  Scriptures. 
To  the  fair  and  rational  mind  it  has  not  impaired, 
but  has  increased  the  real  value  of  the  ancient  books. 
The  church  of  to-day  has  a  larger  and  a  juster  view  than 
the  church  even  of  the  last  century  of  the  Fatherhood  of 
God,  of  the  brotherhood  of  man,  of  the  long  and  patient 
processes  by  which  God  in  His  wisdom  has  builded  the 
worlds  and  of  the  duty  of  men  to  regard  all  others  under 
whatever  sky  as  their  brethren  whom  they  are  not  to 
plunder  and  kill,  but  to  aid  by  all  means  in  their  power. 

It  is  research,  the  search  after  the  truth,  both  by 
tracing  the  footsteps  of  God  in  nature,  and  by  Christian 
exploration  after  the  facts  of  the  development  of  our  reli- 
gion that  has  won  for  us  the  vantage  ground  on  which  we 
now  stand.  It  is  possible,  even  probable,  that  further 
search  will  correct  our  .present  views  in  some  details. 
'But  why  any  honest  and  intelligent  man  should  discourage 
and  fear  the  earnest  and  continuous  quest  after  more 
truth,  it  is  not  easy  to  see.  We  need  only  to  bear  in 

Q 


mind  that  not  everything  new  is  true.j  We  need  to  treat 
with  proper  respect  if  not  all  the  ideas  long  held  by  wise 
and  good  men,  yet  the  wise  and  good  men  themselves. 
But  with  our  minds  open  to  fresh  light,  we  must  not  be 
bound  in  slavish  servitude  to  all  the  beliefs  of  the  past, 
We  ought  to  know  more  of  some  things  than  the  fathers, 
since  so  much  larger  opportunities  are  afforded  to  us  than 
they  enjoyed. 

It  must  be  confessed  that  with  all  the  zeal  of  our  age 
for  literary  and  scientific  attainments,  the  average  col- 
lege graduate  is  far  too  unfamiliar  with  that  greatest  lit- 
erary treasure  of  the  race,  the  sacred  Scriptures,  with 
the  history  of  the  development  of  religious  thought,  with 
the  inner  life  of  the  Christian  church,  in  short  with  the 
power  of  religion  in  shaping  the  career  of  the  race.  If 
you  aspire  to  know  the  forces  that  control  mankind,  es- 
pecially those  that  exalt  and  purify  the  human  heart,  you 
cannot  afford  to  neglect  the  study  of  those  spiritual  forces 
which  have  always  wielded  the  greatest  power  over  men. 
Misunderstood  and  misused,  they  have  sometimes  wrought 
havoc.  But  insofar  as  they  have  been  comprehended  and 
appreciated,  they  have  above  all  other  influences  set  the 
race  forward  towards  its  true  goal.  Therefore,  whatever 
else  the  true  scholar  neglects,  his  plain  duty  and  his  high 
privileges  are  found  in  striving  to  find  out  the  ways  of 
God  in  dealing  with  men,  the  exact  scope  of  the  truth 
which  he  has  sought  to  make  known  to  us  and  our  obli- 
gations to  our  fellowmen. 

It  may  be  said  that  with  our  multifarious  cares  in 
life,  even  college  graduates  cannot  all  be  expert  scien- 
tists or  expert  Biblical  scholars,  and  so  the  question  may 
be  asked,  how  can  the  unlearned  with  any  profit  take 
up  this  search  after  religious  truth?  The  answer  is  sim- 
ple. The  essential  element  of  religious  truth  is  learned 
and  tested  by  the  daily  experience  even  of  the  humblest. 
The  great  Scottish  preacher,  Chalmers,  said  that  he 
learned  more  of  such  truth  from  a  poor  woman  living  in 
an  obscure  lane  in  Edinburgh  than  he  could  pack  into  his 


sermons  in  a  year.  Religion  in  its  essence  is  a  life,  and 
every  one  who  tries  to  live  it  is  constantly  studying  and 
illustrating  it  experimentally.  "Then  shall  ye  know, 
if  ye  follow  on  to  know  the  Lord,"  says  the  prophet.  "If 
any  man  will  do  his  will,  he  shall  know  of  the  doctrine 
whether  it  be  of  God/'  says  our  Lord.  Doing  is  often 
learning.  It  is  often  discovering.  So  the  simplest  and 
humblest  soul  may  by  faithful  and  loving  imitation  of  the 
example  of  Him,  who  said  "I  am  the  truth/'  come  to  the 
clear  recognition  of  spiritual  truth,  which  is  unperceived 
by  the  most  acute  scholar.  Every  one  of  you  may  be 
conducting  such  a  research  in  the  course  of  your  daily 
life. 

As  we  review  this  brief  inspection  of  two  types  of 
scholarship  and  of  two  kinds  of  study,  I  think  we  shall 
agree  that  a  proper  combination  of  them  is  better  than 
exclusive  devotion  to  either  alone.  We  should  make 
ourselves  familiar  with  the  learning  of  the  past  not  only 
for  its  charm,  for  its  inspiring  example  of  the  fruits  of 
patient  toil,  for  its  masterpieces  of  genius,  but  also 
because  it  furnishes  the  foundation  on  which  to  build  in  all 
our  work  of  research.  We  lay  the  foundations  of  our 
discoveries  on  the  achievements  of  the  fathers.  If  they 
have  erred,  our  success  may  be  due  to  a  perception  of 
their  errors,  which  the  fuller  light  of  our  time  has  enabled 
us  to  see.  We  avoid  the  rocks  on  which  their  bark  has 
foundered  and  so  sail  out  into  the  open  sea  and  start  on 
a  prosperous  voyage  of  discovery.  And  we  must  con- 
fess that  proud  as  we  may  be  of  recent  achievements, 
we  can  never  surpass,  probably  never  equal,  some  of 
the  great  masterpieces  of  literature  which  have  come 
down  to  us  Irom  a  remote  past.  It  becomes  us  then  to 
be  at  once  modest  and  grateful  in  view  of  the  intellectual 
wealth  which  we  have  inherited,  how  much  soever  we 
may  hope  to  add  to  it  by  our  own  endeavors.  When- 
ever we  may  take  an  inventory  of  our  intellectual  treas- 
ure, we  shall  find  that  for  far  the  larger  portion  of  it  we 
are  indebted  to  those  who  have  gone  before  us  and  left 

—10— 


us  our  precious  heritage.  Compared  with  the  vast  ac- 
cumulation of  intellectual  wealth  which  the  centuries 
have  handed  down  to  us,  our  own  additions  to  them  for 
the  most  part  seem  petty  and  insignificant.  To  appre-^ 
ciate  what  we  have  received  at  its  true  worth  and  to  use 
it  as  capital  with  which  to  make  our  own  honest  earnings 
is  the  part  of  true  wisdom.  Thus  learning  and  research 
go  hand  in  hand  to  yield  us  the  largest  results. 

And  so  in  our  religious  thought  and  knowledge,  after 
making  all  due  allowance  for  1he  illumination  which  the 
last  half-century  has  brought  to  us  and  rejoicing  at  the 
wider  horizon  of  truth  which  is  opening  upon  us,  yet 
after  all  the  great  bulk  of  our  most  precious^  beliefs  has 
come  down  to  us  from  those  four  brief  and  simple  narra- 
tives, which  we  call  the  Gospels,  and  the  most  valuable 
part  of  our  own  discoveries  consists  in  finding  our  way 
back  through  mediaeval  concealments  of  them  to  their 
fresh  and  simple  instructions,  as  they  fell  from  the  lips 
of  our  Lord.  "Back  to  Christ"  is  the  watchword  of 
this  age.  With  all  the  light  which  the  most  profound 
Biblical  and  historical  learning  can  throw  on  his  charac- 
ter and  career,  with  reverence  for  all  that  the  experience 
and  the  meditations  of  the  saints  have  disclosed  to  us, 
let  us  never  forget  the  Master's  own  rule  for  finding  the 
truth,  namely,  in  all  simplicity  and  honesty  to  do  His 
will  in  the  love  of  it.  Therein  lies  the  secret  of  spirit- 
ual research. 

1  cannot  drop  this  subject,  I  cannot  part  with  you 
without  reminding  you  that  in  the  life  and  character  of 
one,  who  to  our  great  sorrow  has  been  taken  from  us 
this  year,  we  had  a  most  beautiful  example  of  the  union 
in  one  mind  of  the  passion  for  learning  and  the  passion 
for  research.  In  him  was  the  most  harmonious  combi- 
nation of  love  for  the  great  fundamental  beliefs  of  Christ- 
ianity with  the  spirit  of  welcome  for  every  revelation  of 
new  truth,  whether  by  scientific  investigation  or  by 
sound  biblical  scholarship.  Dr.  Prescott,  the  Senior 
Professor  in  this  University,  was  an  ideal  illustration  of 

—11— 


the  Christian  scientific  scholar.  No  child  was  more 
modest  and  humble  in  his  own  estimate  of  his  worth. 
No  saint  was  more  firm  in  his  loyalty  to  his  Lord  and 
Master.  No  scientist  was  more  ardent  in  research  after 
new  scientific  truth.  No  disciple  was  more  convinced 
that  his  research  was  sacred  work,  and  that  every  dis- 
covery that  he  made  of  chemical  facts  or  chemical  laws 
was  a  revelation  of  the  Divine  mode  of  operation.  But 
antecedent  to  all  research  no  student  was  more  assid- 
uous in  learning  all  that  the  wisdom  of  other  investiga- 
tors had  to  communicate  to  him  as  the  groundwork  for 
his  own  quest.  Nor  was  his  respect  for  learning  narrow 
and  confined  to  his  own  branch  of  work.  In  all  our  Uni- 
versity legislation,  in  shaping  which  his  opinion  justly 
carried  great  weight,  he  held  the  most  catholic  views 
about  the  equal  importance  of  the  various  branches  of 
study.  Long  will  his  influence  abide  with  us.  The 
memory  of  his  many  years  of  conspicuous  service  and 
still  more  of  his  pure  and  beautiful  character  will  remain 
as  one  of  our  most  precious  treasures.  May  it  inspire 
each  one  of  us  to  combine  in  due  proportion  as  he  did 
the  old  and  the  new,  the  culture  and  research,  the  most 
genuine  scientific  spirit  with  the  sincerest  piety,  devotion 
to  God  and  love  for  his  fellow-man. 


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